


Payment Plan: The Final Installment

by Indehed



Series: Bride Price [10]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Steve McGarrett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 07:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indehed/pseuds/Indehed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The files held in some government office were the official ones and in the eyes of the law, nothing had changed, but perhaps in the house, things were moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Payment Plan: The Final Installment

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Paulette for the beta, it's been a rollercoaster with this one but we got through!

It was still dark when Danny woke to the feel of hands trailing over his body, more buttons popping open and a wet tongue tracing patterns over his chest. 

"Steve?" he asked, dazedly, still half asleep. 

"Hmmph," was the best response he could get as he looked down to see the other man concentrating on what he was doing. 

"What time is it?" Danny moved as much as he could, craning his neck to see the clock on the bedside table. "Steven, it's the middle of the night, what are you doing?"

Steve crawled back up Danny's body, his weight over him this time feeling comfortable rather than constricting, which Danny felt said a lot about how much they'd managed to get past in the last few hours. Steve kissed him, licking at his lips, turning his head just right to tease Danny in the best way possible. "I thought it was the best way to wake you up."

"What's going on?" Danny asked between a few more kisses.

"I've been thinking," Steve said, propping himself up on his elbows. 

"I thought you were sleeping."

"Not so much. Too many thoughts, I couldn't sleep properly. Just been lying here holding you. You're cute when you sleep. And you talk too, like… little mumbles. I have no idea what that is."

"It's something you'll need to put up with now that we're married."

Steve kissed Danny again before pulling back to where he was before. "I can do that. Anyway, I had an idea and I think you should come with me."

With that, Steve sat upright and pushed himself from the bed. In a quick motion he was pulling on Danny to do the same, despite any protest about where the hell Steve got this energy from. Why wasn't he collapsed in a drunken stupor like the one Danny had been enjoying? His recovery time was far too quick to be human. Fucking sailors.

Danny trailed behind Steve as he was led down the stairs and into the study. Steve finally let go of Danny's hand and opened the top drawer. He looked confused for a minute when what he'd gone looking for wasn't there. "Oh, wait."

He left Danny standing there and ran back to the kitchen, returning with the retrieved documents that Doris had left on the counter earlier. Their wedding contract.

"I know this is just a copy," Steve began, holding them up for Danny to see, "but I figure I can still show you that I'm serious about working this out."

"What're you doing?"

"I'm making you a promise, okay? We can sort this out, we can take things out, change them around, get us to a point where we're both okay with everything. Look," Steve took a few more steps back towards Danny. "Our vows, earlier, they were the basic marriage text that everyone recites and I want to add something to those. Right now."

He approached Danny and scrunched up the papers in his hand as he took hold of Danny's. "Steve, it's the middle of the night."

"I know, I know, just. I want you to hear me out. I've wanted to get your signature on a marriage contract for a long time and I'm going to negotiate with you for as long as it takes us to get you comfortable but I can't let you go, okay? My life here… it's settled, it's good, I finally have the family I always wanted, the one I've searched for since my mom walked out on us, the one I tried to find with the Navy and it just wasn't complete until you walked into the garage. This is it for me, do you understand that?"

"Yeah, Steve, I get it," Danny nodded. There was residual worry floating around his head again at Steve's adamance, but he was willing to relax into things. He still had confidence in them to sort these things through. 

"Okay," Steve gave Danny a quick peck on the lips before letting go and rounding the desk again. He pulled a lighter out of the second drawer and held the papers up high before lighting the bottom corner and watching the flame lick higher, their crisp whiteness slowly turning to ash. 

It was a gesture; it wasn't really making any difference, like Steve had opened by saying. The files held in some government office were the official ones and in the eyes of the law, nothing had changed, but perhaps in the house, things were moving on. 

As the flames reached higher, Steve dropped the last of the papers into a bowl and watched as the whole lot was engulfed. 

"I want our relationship to be no different than it's ever been. Well, except the obvious." Steve came closer again, running his hand over Danny's arm. "I don't want to screw it up before it's even begun."

Danny crossed his arms and leaned on the table, eyes still catching sight of the flames as they slowly began to die down as they ran out of fuel. "You know, one of my sisters texted me earlier on. She had plans to tie your balls to a railroad track and officially boycott pineapple. It was a shame. She was the freak in the family who actually likes pineapple."

"Remind me to send her a gift basket from Dole."

"Hmm," Danny considered, eying the ash in the bowl and Steve's hopeful look. "I know this is all just a gesture, and I'll believe it when I see it, but you're doing good, babe. I'm proud of you. It's growth, I like that."

"I'll be honest; a part of me really doesn't want to change anything. I like what we came up with, but I'll concede that I didn't really give you enough time to digest it before making you sign."

"You're also not getting laid until I'm feeling better about it all."

"I could argue contractual obligations."

"You do that, and I fly my sister out."

"Point taken." Steve checked the flames were out and dumped part of a water bottle into the bowl to be safe, then abandoned his mess to come over to where Danny was leaning on the desk. He edged closer, spreading his legs for balance to avoid Danny's feet and let his hands track down Danny's open shirt until he got to the remaining buttons, pulling them apart until Danny's shirt was wide open. "So… we're good now?"

"We're better," Danny conceded. 

"Can we start by compromising on a little making out?"

"Since when does taking my shirt off have to do with making out?"

"Just a little extra action."

Danny pulled Steve's hands away from where they were dancing over his chest. The allure was difficult to escape, but he was tired out and he needed to have his wits about him in the morning. "Not tonight."

Steve pouted, looking like a kicked puppy, but Danny refused to relent. He led them both back upstairs, all the while telling Steve just how tired he was and just how much he was not getting up early in the morning despite everything they had to do because he'd had a traumatic enough experience recently and wasn't ready to face anything until he'd had at least another eight hours of unconscious bliss.

*

Negotiations took weeks. 

It didn't matter how unofficial it was at the time, people everywhere knew they were renegotiating their contract because they barely talked about anything else outside of casework. They refused to involve lawyers, citing them as a waste of money and they were perfectly able to do all this themselves. Hell, if _**anyone**_ tried to voice an opinion, they would turn and together shoot that person down for being an interfering busybody. 

Steve took a strong stance on Grace's trust fund. He argued that since he'd already set up the first payment there was no point in stopping it. Also, he'd feel incredibly guilty if he took it off the table, thinking it made him look like he didn't care anymore when he loved her dearly. 

As for the house, sure it had a hefty value but Steve felt that was useless unless they actually sold it anyway. The value was in the fact that it was a roof over their heads that would be there for years to come. He may own it, but it was inherited; he hadn't bought it with his own money so the value wasn't something he could truly visualize.

Danny took himself out of his offer immediately, that was the first and easiest decision he could make. Steve put up a token argument, saying he could put _himself_ in the deal too, because surely that would even things out but Danny was having none of it. 

His car? Somehow along the way that stayed in. Maybe it was some unnecessary guilt complex Danny had from putting them through all of this. It wasn't his fault, he knew that. Not _just_ his fault. They'd both signed. He knew going in that Steve was a giant control freak with abandonment issues and a hero complex, so it should never have shocked him that he wanted the deal as is and in their crazy one night of discussions, had convinced Danny that it should be done his way.

But because Danny was the one to instigate the need for change, he felt like he had to make concessions of his own again. And it seemed the car was one of those. It lightened Steve's mood, and frankly, it showed that Danny did trust Steve with his life because if he was letting him drive everywhere, then that was commitment.

In the end, they came up with two different sets of documents only one of which would be refiled with city hall. The other was one they kept for themselves. It was their unofficial document, one with stupidly high expectations of each other that were motivated more by emotion than wealth and social expectations. They took it just as seriously as the government mandated form. It appealed to Steve's possessive nature, and to Danny's need for structure. To Steve's protectiveness and Danny's cynicism. It accounted for their codependency and it let them return to some form of normalcy.

Steve had backed off admirably but Danny could see in his eyes that he was struggling to maintain his outward cool as the deal was chipped away at. It was why he'd suggested the second one that was just for themselves. In this one, he'd made a lot of concessions of his own for Steve as it seemed fair. There were things that he wasn't entirely comfortable with but he was willing to try for Steve if it made him happy. He just kept telling himself that it wasn't wholly real, but the thing was, maybe it was more real than anything that a court system would hold over the heads. Because it was a promise made and he was nothing if not a man of honor. 

So Steve did continue to have somewhat of a hold over him, if in spirit more than the eyes of the law. Danny was embracing it, he was relenting. He didn't have the fight left in him to dispute it anymore.


End file.
